Aquino: Levy is for farmers

President to issue EO, certify bill on coco funds urgent

Christian V. Esguerra
1:09 AM | Thursday, November 27th, 2014

PRESIDENTIAL ASSURANCE President Aquino meets on Wednesday

with coconut farmers who marched from Davao City starting on Sept. 21,
the 42nd anniversary of martial law, to Malacaang. He assured them that
the government is on their side and supports their efforts to recover coco
levy funds. GRIG C. MONTEGRANDE
Their long walk to Malacaang did not exactly go to waste.
Assuring coconut farmers that the government was on your side, President
Benigno Aquino III on Wednesday threw his support behind a bill outlining
how they would directly benefit from P71 billion in taxes collected from them
during the Marcos regime.
The President also gave the group Kilus Magniniyog his word that he would
look into its proposal for an executive order putting up a Coconut Farmers
Trust Fund.

I hope its clear: You have our full support and we are on your side, he told
coconut farmers in Filipino in a meeting in Malacaang. May you continue
to trust [the government]. Help us in the struggle to achieve our singular
objective for coconut farmers and the rest of the Philippines.
The farmers wore green shirts with the words, Nakaw na Coco Levy, Ibalik
sa Niyugan. For the meeting, the President assembled a powerhouse group
of his Cabinet men: Presidential Assistant on Food Security and Agricultural
Modernization Francis Pangilinan, Budget Secretary Florencio Abad, Justice
Secretary Leila de Lima, Environment Secretary Ramon Paje, Executive
Secretary Paquito Ochoa, and Cabinet Secretary Jose Rene Almendras.
Covering around 1,700 kilometers in 66 days, 71 coconut farmers calling
themselves KM71 marched from Davao City to Malacaang beginning
Sept. 21, the 42nd anniversary of martial law, to dramatize their plight.
More important, small coconut farmers want to take control of and actually
benefit from P71 billion in coco levy funds the government recovered from
cronies of the late President Ferdinand Marcos.
The best course of action I see is to craft a law. This would ensure that the
next generation would enjoy the benefits brought by the coco levy fund and
we would be spared from any legal obstacle in the future, Mr. Aquino told
the farmers.
He said coconut farmers would be consulted primarily about the provisions
that will be contained in the bill, which he promised to certify as urgent so
it could be passed into law at the soonest time.
Law, executive order
But pending such a law, the President was open to issuing an executive
order ensuring that the coconut industry, especially small farmers, would
enjoy the benefits of the coco levy fund.
Mr. Aquino agreed that the fund should be separate from the annual budget
of the Philippine Coconut Authority.
I also agree that we will use only interest income from the coco levy fund so
that even the next generation of farmers would benefit from it, he said.
Saying his administration did not neglect coconut farmers, he said the
government had increased the PCAs budget from P593 million in 2010 to
P5.1 billion last year.

Because of this budget, we were able to focus on programs that made your
farm lands more productive, he said.
At the outset, the President reminded the group that the Supreme Court had
yet to decide on the motion for partial reconsideration of its 2012 ruling that
the government owned the 27-percent block of shares of San Miguel Corp.,
the Coconut Industry Investment Fund (CIIF).
Only for farmers
The percentage was later reduced to 24 percent as a result of a Japanese
brewers investment in SMC.
Another Supreme Court decision in December 2012 also ruled that shares
transferred to businessman Eduardo Danding Cojuangco at United
Coconut Planters Bank belonged to the government.
They were to be used only for the benefit of all coconut farmers and for the
development of the coconut industry, and ordered reconveyed to the
government, the high court said.